Tag: David Haye

The World Boxing Council yesterday handed down a stiff punishment to heavyweight Derek Chisora for what they have termed “one of the worst behaviors ever by a professional boxer” in the months and days leading up to and the hours after his February 18 championship bout with Vitali Klitschko in Munich.

Imagine the nerve of Chisora, smacking the champion across the face as if he was a child of the 1960s getting disciplined by his father. (Nowadays, that would never happen because if you slap your own kid across the face the police get called in and I’m not kidding.)

Klitschko (44-2) could not wait to get into the ring against Chisora and teach him a lesson for his disrespect. He pretty much did just that, setting a tone in the opening round by cutting Chisora’s lip. The bout was fairly even for the next three rounds, but then Klitschko started to pound Chisora with a constant one-fisted attack.

That one fist was Klitschko’s right hand because Klitschko claimed that he injured his left hand during the early portion of the fight. Klitschko’s strong right hand was good enough to get him the victory and allow him to retain his World Boxing Council championship.

However, even though Chisora (15-3) lost he gave a fairly good account of himself during the fight. He had several rallies where he would respond to Klitschko’s punches with his own flurries. He appeared to hurt the champion from time to time, but not enough to put the results of the fight in doubt.

[Haye] doesn’t believe Toney’s going to be able to fight him after he gets pummeled by Couture, though he has mad respect for Toney’s boxing skill and record. “James Toney is the purest of the pure at boxing,” Haye said. “He is so brilliant at boxing and his skills are so ingrained in him that he’s been an elite level fighter, in shape or not in shape, his skills alone put him on another level as a boxer.

Haye believes Couture will take Toney down quickly and easily and pummel him on the ground…“Six months of training isn’t going to be enough,” Haye said. “As a UFC fan, I know two or three years wouldn’t be enough. How many times has Toney sprawled in his life? 500? How many leg kicks has he taken in his life? 300? How many Kimura attempts has he defended? 140? Even if he’s done double that amount, he wouldn’t have nearly the experience needed to win a UFC fight.”

(It was either this or a dude wearing underwear from a GIS for “boxer”.)

— Roy Jones, Jr. has spoken out again about Dana White’s expected block of the proposed boxing match between Jones and Anderson Silva. Jones was on Sherdog’s “Beatdown” recently and discussed his side of the Silva vs. Jones, Jr. boxing match-that’ll-never-happen debacle. As mentioned by BloodyElbow, “selfish” and “cheat” were words tossed around by Jones when talking about Dana and the UFC’s block. At this point, it’s beating a dead horse — the fight isn’t going to happen, Dana will always be a cock, and Anderson Silva would have lost in a boxing match against Roy Jones, Jr. Let this be the last of this talk, please.

— Chicago native Terry Martin was dropped from the UFC recently for sucking ass in the organization. So now he’s decided to try his hand at boxing. Martin will fight Ricardo Upchurch this Friday in a cruiserweight match — aka, 190 lbs, not that pesky 185 he had trouble with in the UFC. Here’s what Martin had to say about the move to the Chicago Sun-Times:

“Boxing was my first love…I started in mixed martial arts after wrestling in college at Northern Illinois University.

“It was a logical progression, but I’ve always had boxing in the back of my mind to get back to. Now’s a good time to get back to boxing, my training and sparring have been very good and I have no problem making weight. At this point I’m more excited about boxing than I am in MMA.’”

The fighter is not forever turning his back on MMA, though — according to his grappling coach, via BloodyElbow:

“I have been the grappling/MMA coach for Terry Martin for the last 2 and a half years. Terry wants everybody to know that he is training full time in MMA getting ready for his May 17th fight in Newcastle England against THE CROW and that boxing is only a way for him to stay active .His goal is to win a few fights outside the UFC and return to compete for the 185 lb title.

To compete for the 185 lb. title, huh? Well, let’s not go crazy here. Sure, some boxing experience would be good for Martin, but challenging Anderson Silva is…well, a death wish, right?

— And finally, David Haye, the current WBA, WBC, and WBO World Cruiserweight title holder, is considering a move to MMA. He’s the undisputed cruiserweight champ and is planning a move to the heavyweight division. Then, it might be onto MMA.

“I’d probably have to train for a year and try and make that fight because I definitely feel that my reactions are good enough – and if I can get my ground game to a reasonable level… Obviously, I’m not going to be able to catch up with these guys who have been doing jiu-jitsu their whole lives.

“Believe it or not, I come from a martial arts background, my father was a karate teacher, so I’ve got good legs. I’ve done judo, so I know what I’m doing. I train at a gym called the Third Space in Piccadilly which has a jiu-jitsu dojo and I get in there from time to time and have a roll around with the guys. They tell me I’m at a decent level, if I put some focus into it and put some time and effort into it… I’m a natural athlete, I can do anything that I want to do and I think that it would be definitely worth my while getting in to do it.”

“I used to fight in the street, I used to be a street fighter, so I’m not a traditional boxer, I’ve done martial arts since the age of three. I might surprise a few people with my ground game.”

The “Hayemaker” is reportedly a big fan of MMA, but we’ve heard this kind of chatter from boxers before, so the jury is still out.